“Teddy's Lament”

I’ve been in therapy for a while, struggling to come to terms with events that happened during my childhood. To face them head-on, my therapist recommended writing down everything I can remember about that time of my life.

Just to get it out of the way, the house I grew up in was haunted. This story isn’t the first thing that we experienced, but it’s as good a place to start as any. In the past, I’ve even shared some things I endured in the haunted house I grew up in. I’ll sum things up just a little so you don’t feel like you’re missing anything.

When I was a kid growing up in the ’80s, I lived in that house that every neighborhood has—you know, the one people generally stay away from and gossip about at the local supermarket. They’ll say things like, “I’ve always had a bad feeling about that place,” or, “Hey, did you hear that place was haunted?”

I grew up hearing about it from my friends, who must have listened to the stories from their siblings or parents. There were a lot of different versions, of course. Because we lived in Dayton, Ohio, near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the rumors stretched from aliens to a previous family of serial killers having lived there. As wild as all the tales I’ve heard were, I can tell you from experience that none were even close to the truth.

You’ve already heard about how we were forced to leave our home, so I thought I’d take you back a bit further this time around. My apologies in advance if this story ruins some aspect of your childhood. I assure you that it cannot be helped.

It was the summer of ’87 in Riverside, Ohio. I was five years old, the youngest of the bunch. My brother was a year older, and my sister was four years my senior. Mom was a special effects artist in the independent horror film scene. As you can imagine, we had an interesting childhood. Horror was a way of life in our family. It still is to this day, despite all the stories I share—and the therapy that often accompanies them.

Growing up that way gives a kid a thicker skin against the darkness that lurks around every corner during childhood. At least, for me, it did. Maybe that’s why we stayed in that house as long as we did. There are some things in life that nothing can prepare you for, no matter how specifically you’re geared toward it. You already know about that, though, so let’s move on.

We lived in a low-income area and sometimes went without necessities. Forget having the latest toys—we were lucky to get something a decade or more after it came out. So, when Mom brought home that Teddy Ruxpin, we thought our parents had hit the lottery. Even discovering it was a knock-off did nothing to dampen our spirits.

We were immediately obsessed with it and took it everywhere we went. My brother and I would fight over who got to sit next to it in the car or around the dining table. Naming it was a week-long event that ended in bruises and even a bit of brotherly bloodshed. If that last sentence sounds strange to you, it’s likely you were an only child—or came from a different kind of family altogether. Let me assure you that, for many of us, it was absolutely normal.

We landed on Teddy, by the way, in case you were wondering. It was Mom’s suggestion, and we accepted it in lieu of a grounding for our behavior.

We would listen to the tapes that came with it endlessly. It didn’t matter how many times we heard them. We got excited every time that stupid little bear came to life and moved its stupid droopy eyelids. It was pure magic for us, and in some ways, I suppose it still is.

Since we shared the same room, he and I would play with it at all hours of the day and night. Mom wasn’t fond of our play schedule, but as long as we hid it under the sheets with a flashlight at night and kept the volume low, she was none the wiser. My sister, on the other hand, was beyond over the novelty and would hide it or prank us with it whenever an opportunity arose.

Another thing you should know about my family is that we were all huge pranksters. We kept track of the greatest pranks and who pulled them off in a little book that Mom kept in her sewing basket. Getting into the book was a badge of honor. Our pranks got a little wild at times and had, on three occasions, ended in an emergency room trip for at least one of us.

With that in mind, something else important happened in ’87. A little book called Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark had just made its way to cassette tape format. Being the young explorers of the literary landscape we were, the chance to hear the stories come to life was nothing short of a dream come true. It was my sister who put the prank of all pranks into motion.

One evening, when everyone else was busy eating dinner, she snuck into our room and replaced the cassette tape in Teddy’s chest with the one mentioned above. It was genius in its simplicity and intended impact. Thinking back on it now, I’m kind of jealous that I hadn’t thought of it first.

Later that night, when my brother and I snuck into the top bunk together, armed with our flashlights in the middle of the night, we were none the wiser. We went about our usual routine of getting settled and reached for Teddy. We would not be denied our nightly admiration of such a technological marvel.

By the time we realized that Teddy wasn’t telling us the story about the time he and his friends got lost in Boggley Woods, it was too late. Horrified, we listened to the scarring melody of The Hearse Song. We learned about witches and voodoo, urban legends about babysitters and hooks, and games involving the brains of dead men.

We lay there, frozen and afraid, Teddy’s eyes never leaving ours. It wasn’t until the tape ended that we found our breaths again, dove off the top bunk, and into the sideways-mounted one below. We screamed our heads off until Mom flung open the door, half asleep, and hit our light switch.

That prank went down in the book the next morning by general consensus. Despite our disposition toward horror, our love of Teddy cooled a little after that. We still played with it, though a little less often with each passing day. Eventually, it earned itself a spot in our personal no man’s land—the closet—where all our forgotten and broken toys ended up eventually.

A few months passed without so much as a word from either of us about our poor Teddy. Mom had stopped asking about him. Our sister had stopped moving him around and pranking us. He’d been lost to the collective hive mind of our home. We might have forgotten about him forever if not for that fateful day.

One afternoon, we were playing a board game in our bedroom. The game itself wasn’t important, as we tended to mix pieces from different games and make up our own versions to the constant irritation of our parents. I’d just gotten all nines on the trouble bubble, connected the four, and stood up to shout shenanigans and slap my brother with a white rubber glove when it happened.

Suddenly, from the closet of no return, we could hear a muffled voice.

At first, we ignored it. We lived in a dangerously haunted home and had long ago learned not to investigate spooky sounds. As the volume steadily increased, though, it became impossible to bask in our ignorance.

It was our sister who saved Teddy from his prison then, for better or worse. She nonchalantly pulled him out of his tomb and placed him on the floor between my brother and me. It had stopped speaking in transit for some reason, which I thought was strange at the time. Eventually, it blinked its droopy eyelids three times and told us a story.

For the first few minutes, it sounded just like our old favorite, Lost in Boggley Woods. At some point, though, the main characters were replaced with three young children who had the same names as ours. Children who wore the same clothes we did. Children who loved the same songs and played the same games.

We forgot, at first, that no such story existed on any of his tapes. We forgot that his batteries should have long been dead. We forgot the terror we’d experienced during our sister’s grand prank.

At some point, the story changed. The tone became steadily darker, and the descriptions were downright gory. The children transitioned from a magical journey into the woods with their best friend Teddy to being dismembered and eaten by a life-sized mechanical bear.

When it was over, my sister, with tears in her eyes, accused us of trying to get her back with a lame prank. I was convinced she had been the culprit until that moment. A glance at my brother echoed that sentiment. Not believing us, my sister grabbed Teddy and nearly broke his tape deck in her attempt to find the evidence.

When the tape deck finally opened, it was empty. Teddy’s droopy eyelids remained open, staring at us from his position on the floor. I swear to this day that it was smiling. When that realization truly hit us, we three screamed in unison until Mom came running into the room.

At first, she refused to believe anything had happened. She said we must have been imagining things because she had taken the batteries out to use for something else the day before. Just as she opened the battery casing and showed us it was empty, Teddy’s eyes twitched, and he uttered a single word.

“Ouch.”

Startled, my mom dropped Teddy on the floor. I remember it saying her actual name out loud. He noted that “Patty was naughty and needs to be punished” in a strangely pleasant voice. It was the kind of voice that triggered both terror and comfort simultaneously—pleasing tones with devastating connotations. This time, even Mom screamed.

Regaining her wits, Mom grabbed Teddy by the foot and ran outside, with us in tow. She struggled to stuff its furry mechanical body into a trash can as its arms appeared to reach out to grab the rim. She screamed for us to help, begging us to push it down with her and find the garbage can lid.

The ordeal took a few minutes, but we eventually managed to cram it into its new metal tomb and tie the lid down with a couple of bungee cords from Dad’s garage. The racket it made inside was awful. It threatened to render our flesh and devour us once it escaped. It slammed its furry fists and dented the can from the inside out.

Ordering us to hold the top down just in case, she took another quick trip to Dad’s garage. She returned with some lighter fluid and a torch. And two small shovels.

On the count of three, we unhooked the bungees and opened the lid. My brother and sister slammed the shovels down on its head to disorient it. I took that moment to spray the lighter fluid, and Mom lit the torch to cover Teddy in hot, fiery death.

In some strange state of shock, we stood there watching it burn. Its eyes twitched erratically. Its mouth was opening and closing so quickly and with such force that the jaw popped off. Before it closed those droopy eyelids forever, it did something that will forever be etched into my brain.

It screamed.